1. Technical Field
The invention generally relates to a breathing training apparatus, and more particularly, to an abdominal breathing training apparatus, an abdominal breathing training system and a method thereof.
2. Related Art
Abdominal breathing is an important rehabilitation exercise for physiological treatments. More air can be breathed in by performing the abdominal breathing than performing a thoracic respiration. Therefore, the oxygen utilization is increased by breathing. Besides, the abdominal breathing is also a physiological training approach beneficial for relaxing people and releasing stresses of people. For example, the patient after a lung surgery or a heart surgery, the patient of asthma and the patient of pulmonary edema are usually required to practice the abdominal breathing in order to enhance weak breathing capability after the surgery or improve breathing frequency and breathing intensity.
Regarding mental treatments, symptoms of the patient with phobia disorder and panic disorder or other body and mind disorder situation caused psychologically can be reduced when the patient performs the abdominal breathing. Besides, a medical practitioner can determine the body and mind condition of the patient by monitoring the abdominal breathing situation of the patient, and thus assist the patient to keep a balanced body and mind condition through such a physiological feedback mechanism. With respect to health care, performing the abdominal breathing is simple, easily implemented, and beneficial for releasing stresses but not limited to time, location, space or equipments. In other words, the abdominal breathing is also good for a person to maintain a good body and mind condition.
In order to have advantages of the abdominal breathing, the person is required to perform the abdominal breathing correctly. Usually, the person practicing the abdominal breathing needs a professional medical practitioner accompanies the person. The professional medical practitioner normally monitors the abdominal breathing process by placing a hand on the person's abdomen and provides correction instructions. This training approach is reliable but not economical since the person who performs the abdominal breathing cannot practice by himself/herself.
Clinically, conventional or common breathing training methods may use standard physiological values or physiological measurement values to determine whether the breathing training is correct or effective. For example, a Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) through a spirometer measurement, a Forced Expiratory Volume in the first second (FEV1), a Functional Residual Capacity (FRC) and Total Lung Capacity (TLC) are common physiological measurement values used in the breathing training. However, those clinical measurement values cannot directly evaluate the effects of the abdominal breathing. There are other techniques developed for determining an effectiveness of the abdominal breathing training. For example, a body surface potential which indicates a variation of heart beats can be applied to acquire the breathing frequency through specific signal processing. Also, training interfaces are designed to measure breathing physiological data for a professional medical practitioner to determine whether the user/the patient is correctly performing the abdominal breathing, and further inform a user/the patient of his/her own abdominal breathing condition. However, the aforementioned physiological measurement values are not directly designed for or directly measured from the abdominal breathing. Besides, the aforementioned training interfaces or physiological measurements usually require bulky or inconvenient equipments such as a breathing mask or a set of sensing patches. There is currently no physiological measurement equipment which directly measures the abdominal breathing values and further providing feedback or indications for the user/the patient adjust his/her abdominal breathing process as the user/the patient can perform/practice the abdominal breathing on his/her pace.